1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer networking and computer software. More particularly, the present invention relates to network management systems.
2. Description of the Background Art
Simple network management protocol (SNMP) is a protocol that is used to exchange management-related information between network devices. Different versions of SNMP exist.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram depicting a conventional SNMP managed network 100. The network includes a network management system (NMS) 102 and SNMP agents 104 interconnected by way of an Internet Protocol (IP) network 101. The NMS 102 resides on one or more management stations 106, and the SNMP agents 104 reside in managed devices 108. The managed devices 108 may include, for example, computer hosts, servers, printers, bridges, hubs, switches, or other network elements.
The management station 106 includes a management information base (MIB) 110. The MIB 110 includes information about the properties of managed resources and the services supported by the agents 104. Among other information, the MIB 110 includes a global trap definition file 112. The managed devices 108 may each include a management sub-system 114
A trap is an SNMP command that is used to report events from an agent 104 to the NMS 102. Among other objects and information, the MIB 110 includes definitions of event traps. Each trap has associated a specific trap code to identify the trap event.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart depicting a conventional method 200 of providing support for new traps in an SNMP system. A new trap comprises a newly defined type of network-management-related event. For example, the new trap may be an alert to the NMS regarding a type of equipment error, or regarding a type of security breach, or various other types of events.
For example, a network product (such as a switch or other device) may be developed with a feature so as to support 202 a new SNMP trap. However, the network management software does not know 204 how to process the new trap because the global definition file 112 does not include a definition for the new trap.
In order to support the new trap, a user with privilege to modify the global definition file 112 (such as, for example, a software engineer of a system provider) accesses 206 the global definition file 112. The user then modifies 208 the source code of the global definition file 112 so that it includes instructions as to processing the new trap. This new global definition file may then be released 210 to customers, and a customer may replace 212 the previously-used global definition file with the new global definition file. Thereafter, the customer's network management software (at the managed devices and the NMS) processes 214 the new trap using the new global definition file.
It is highly desirable to improve networking and network management systems. In particular, it is desirable to improve the conventional technique for supporting new event traps in network management systems.